


Punch the guilt out of me

by newtmasdoesthedo



Category: The Maze Runner (2014), The Maze Runner Series - All Media Types, The Maze Runner Series - James Dashner
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt and Comfort but without the Comfort, I'm Sorry, Violence, all angst and no comfort, and the anon who got me thinking about this once should be too, extreme sadness, here it is, share my pain
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-27
Updated: 2014-12-27
Packaged: 2018-03-03 20:14:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2886143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/newtmasdoesthedo/pseuds/newtmasdoesthedo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thomas was met with dark brown eyes, but he averted his gaze to Minho’s hands, which were moving on their own accord. He didn’t see brown like he knew he should. He saw blue.</p><p>In the beginning he’d wondered if he wasn’t immune after all, or if some other virus had gotten out. If he was slowly going crazy. Whatever eyes he looked into, he saw those icy blues, flickering between anger, insanity and then those final seconds of clarity that he himself had put out.</p><p>Eyecontact had become a dreaded thing to him.</p><p>"Spit it out, shuckface. I’m working. You’re disturbing my peace of mind with your ugly face." Minho jabbed, smirking his usual smirk.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Punch the guilt out of me

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. I'm really sorry. Truly. I am, I swear. The anon who asked me about this should also be sorry.  
> 2\. Unbetaed, as I'm still on vacation. Yes, I'm putting my semi-vacation-hiatus on hold to share my sadness with you guys. You don't deserve this and I'm a terrible person.  
> 3\. Feel free to tell me how terrible [here](http://newtmasdoesthedo.tumblr.com/ask). Other messages are more than welcome, but I'll be expecting scolding for this.

"Minho?" Thomas had never felt a dread like this in the pit of his stomach. Through everything they’d been through, this was maybe the second-hardest thing he’d ever had to do.

He’d seen and done some terrible things, some happily forgotten, one in particular haunting him forever. Now was the time to finally own up to the one that had wrecked him the most.

"Hm?" his friend asked, looking up from the wood he’d been carcing. Apart from the insanely long runs Minho had started taking (Thomas had joined him after a while, it was like neither one could make themselves stop running)  he seemed to find some strange solace in this habit, as though he could cut all the pain and agony he’d been through into surprisingly accurate figurines and transfer it from his own body to them.

Thomas was met with dark brown eyes, but he averted his gaze to Minho’s hands, which were moving on their own accord. He didn’t see brown like he knew he should. He saw blue.

In the beginning he’d wondered if he wasn’t immune after all, or if some other virus had gotten out. If he was slowly going crazy. Whatever eyes he looked into, he saw those icy blues, flickering between anger, insanity and then those final seconds of clarity that he himself had put out.

Eyecontact had become a dreaded thing to him.

"Spit it out, shuckface. I’m working. You’re disturbing my peace of mind with your ugly face." Minho jabbed, smirking his usual smirk. The one constant in a world that constantly had Thomas question everything. At one point he’d even considered if Minho was working for WICKED or if he even existed and wasn’t someone they just made him see. Then he’d realized that no one could cook up something as infuriating as Minho, and that no one could fake such hatred that Minho held for WICKED.

Thomas knew that the comments were only friendly jibes, but Minho would mean every word and more to join soon enough.  
He felt like he was going to hurl.  
The brunette briefly considered asking Mibho to put down his knife, but if the former Keeper of Runners wanted to kill him after what he was going to say, he would easily be able to it, with or without the knife.

Thomas wouldn’t even blame him, and he was cowardly enough to want it to be over quickly. “I killed Newt,” he blurted, wanting to get it out before his lost his nerve and the words stuck in his throat, yet again unsaid. He’d tried plenty of times, but he’d never managed.

Minho’s eyes flashed dangerously. “If that’s supposed to be a joke, it’s not funny, Tommy.”

Thomas flinched. Hearing Newt’s old nickname for him in Minho’s deep voice hurt like Minho might have actually stabbed him. His friend read the flinching wrong, of course, which Thomas couldn’t really blame him, because what kind of monster would say something like that? Which sort of monster would have done something like that? The expression on Minho’s face softened.

"You can’t keep blaming yourself." He muttered, and his voice was so soft it made Thomas want to cry.

"No, Minho, slim it and listen." his voice shook, and Thomas cleared his throat, realizing how perfectly pointless it was, seeing as Minho’s opinion of him would soon be unsalvagable. "When I was on my way to WICKED," he took another deep breath, "Before I boarded the Berg, when we were driving to the hangar, the car crashed. Newt was there."

He closed his eyes, trying to will the tears away, but it showed impossible. Instead he focused on his breathing for another two seconds, thankful that Minho hadn’t started speaking, because he’d end up chickening out if he was given any cchance now. “I never showed you because he didn’t want me to tell anyone.”

Thomas stuck his hand in his pocket. He didn’t know why he still carried the note. It was useless to torture himself this way, but he looked at it almost everyday, bringing it everywhere, trying to remind himself that he’d only done what Newt wanted of him. “Back before the three of us ran with Brenda and Jorge. You know, when he disappeared right after he started acting weird,” he cleared his throat again, hating how hard this was, but he had expected it to, so he pushed on.

"It said to kill him if we were ever really friends. That’s why he was so angry with me at the Crank Palace. He thought I’d seen the note and ignored it, but I only read it after."

He chanced a look at Minho’s face, instantly regretting that decision. It had gone from soft to hurt and disbelieving. “Why did he ask you and not me?”

Thomas swallowed and shrugged. He’d asked himself the same thing for a long time before finally realizing. “You’d never have done it. He knew I was the only one-“

Minho scowled and cut him off before he finally had the time to get the words out that he’d been building up courage for through all the years since. “You wouldn’t either.” He growled, making it sound so final and looking so furious until he finally put the words together. Thomas didn’t like the look of dawning realization and horror on his face. “No.”

He’d never heard Minho’s voice sound so hollow before. Of all of them, Minho had always kept a straight face, always been the one to make a shitty joke, to tell them they were being idiots, but now he looked broken in a way that Thomas hadn’t seen before. He wanted nothing more than to be able to give Minho what he wanted. For all of this not to be true. 

"I shot him. He didn’t want to become a monster," even as he said it Thomas knew that he was making excuses, not as much for Minho’s sake as for his own. He wasn’t stupid enough to hope that Minho would forgive him for this. Not now, not in a year, not ever. "You knew him," he hated himself for trying anyway, he hated that he wasn’t weak enough to just let Minho think of him as a monster. He deserved to have that. He’d known Newt longer than anyone else that had been left. "He was too good to turn into that."

Minho was on him before Thomas even knew it.  

Every punch was the punishment that Thomas had been waiting for forever, and he welcomed it despite the pain. Maybe if Minho kept punching long enough, he’d beat the guilt out of him. Or beaat him to death. Thomas would have welcomed either one by now, as long as it was followed by silence from his ever-nagging conscience. There was no silence, though, only the assault of Minho’s fists and his best friend in the world screaming at him while he was locked between his thighs and held to the floor. When he’d dropped the knife Thomas didn’t know.

"Fight back! Fight back, you coward! Fight back, you disgusting monster! You killed him! You killed Newt! You fucking killed him!" Minho pulled Thomas’ upper buody up off the floor, only to have his fist connect with Thomas’ jaw again, impossibly harder this time than the others, knocking him to t he floor so hard that his skull cracked against it with a dull thump.

Thomas opened his eyes for the first time, dizzy and disoriented by the blow, and he instantly regretted that decision.

Above him was Newt. Sweet, gentle Newt, the person to take care of every single Glader like a big brother. The one who never wanted to leave anyone behind, staring down at him with furious hatred etched in every feature, and Thomas knew that it was Minho, but it felt like Newt was here punishing him for not looking long enough for another way out. There must have been another way. Thomas had drawn this conclusion a long time ago, and it loomed over him with everything he did. It was a miracle that he’d survived this long, because for every day that went, the weight of what he’d done settled over him like a dark blanket suffocating him. He hadn’t noticed that his body was wrecked with sobs until he tried speaking, apologizing to not-Newt on top of him.

"I’m sorry Newt, I’m sorry. Please forgive me. I’m sorry. I did it for you, you asked, I’m sorry."

With every punch bringing him closer to blissful unconsciousness from the screams above him, the bones cracking, the guilt and the feeling that this was exactly what he deserved, Thomas felt something inside him crack, knowing that he’d been lying to himself.

"I couldn’t stand seeing you turn into that," he whimpered, barely above a whisper and almost unintelligible because of the blood that filled his mouth. "I couldn’t. You were the best person I ever knew. You took care of me, of all of us."

His sentence was punctuated by a sharp hit to his torso, and he felt something like a rib cracking. “I couldn’t let you become a monster. You were my last hope for all of us. I couldn’t let you. I was selfish.”

Above him, the beating stopped, and Thomas slowly opened his eyes as far as they would go, catching a glimpse of Minho’s tear streaked face through swollen eyes. “Do it.” He prompted, his croaking voice surely betraying his misery. He’d rather die, having realized that he’d never acted for Newt. “Please, Minho, please,” he only vaguely realized that he was repeating the plea that Newt had extended to him. “I killed him. If you’re going to hate me forever for doing as he asked, just kill me. I can’t go on having lost you both.”

With that, Minho collapsed on top of him, and even through the stabs of searing pain, Thomas could feel Minho’s sobs shaking his body.

He’d never seen his friend cry before, and a selfish part of him was glad he didn’t have to now. Newt wasn’t the only person Thomas had wronged by not finding another way out. He didn’t know if Minho had decided not to kill him, but t hat didn’t stop the frantic stream of apologies from busting from his lips as Minho’s tears soaked his shirt. He wasn’t apologizing in the hopes that Minho would spare him, he was apologizing in the hopes that Minho would somehow realize that Thomas regretted everything. He didn’t have to forgive him, but he needed to know that Thomas hated himself more than Minho ever could.

He didn’t know how long this went on, his own frantic sobbing and Minho’s silent tears, - minutes? Hours? It felt like days - later, Minho sat up, dealing one last blow to the side of Thomas’ head and moved off of him.

This was it. His last friend in the world would kill him, and Thomas couldn’t blame him in the slightest. 

"Please," he pleaded, shedding the last tear he had in him and wincing slightly when it ran down his cheek, finding a cut on his way and making his entire face sting. "Do it quick." 

The gruff sound that hit his ear a little to the left told him that Minho was probably picking up his knife. Thomas was ready. 

"You did the right thing." And with that, Minho left.


End file.
